While most station groups reported major declines in ad revenue in the third quarter, thanks to a steep decline in political advertising compared to a year ago, this week’s earnings calls with analysts were generally bullish. Most station groups beat expectations, reporting better-than-expected year-over-year results for core advertising sales that exclude political and the Olympics.

A close review of those earnings calls also provides a snapshot of the state of the industry in the latter half of 2025 and its prospects for 2026.

Station executives offered bullish comments about next year, thanks to the prospects of heavy political advertising and the likelihood regulators will relax ownership rules and allow a wave of dealmaking.

For the moment, though, all the station results were heavily impacted by the absence of political revenue in Q3 2025 compared to the record spending during the 2024 presidential campaign.

“Advertising revenue of $476 million decreased $146 million or 23.5% over the comparable prior year quarter, primarily reflecting a $145 million year-over-year decrease in political advertising,” Nexstar Media Group President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Biard noted. “However, nonpolitical advertising was essentially flat and better than our expectation of a low single-digit decline.”

Sinclair also reported year-over-year declines in total revenue, thanks to the absence of significant ad income in Q3, but reported revenue that was generally better than expected. “We delivered strong performance and met or exceeded guidance across all key metrics,” Sinclair President and CEO Chris Ripley said on the company’s Q3 earnings call. “Total revenue of $773 million came in higher than the high end of our guidance range. Core revenues were up 7% year-over-year on an as-reported basis.”

Likewise, Gray Media generally beat analysts’ expectations and while overall revenue was down 21% YoY, Q3 2025 revenue was above analyst expectations.

Hilton Howell Jr., Gray Media’s chairman and CEO, said: “Our results for the third quarter of 2025 compared favorably to our Q3 guidance for both revenues and expenses. Total revenue in the third quarter of 2025 was $749 million, at the high end of our guidance for the quarter.”

Pat LaPlatney, president and co-CEO at Gray Media added: “Q3 continued the theme we’ve been describing throughout 2025, with advertisers remaining somewhat cautious due to the macro environment. Through the quarter, though, we saw core activity strengthen more than we had projected back in August, and we ultimately finished on the high side of guidance. Remember that the Olympics on NBC provided about a $20 million uplift in July and August of 2024, of which about $16 million was core ad revenue and $4 million was political. Factoring that in, our third quarter was up about 1% over 2024.”

E.W. Scripps reported that third-quarter company revenue was $526 million, down 19% or $120 million from the prior-year quarter, mainly due to political advertising. But its Local Media division reported that core advertising (excluding political) was up, due to the services category and ”overall growth in national advertising due to strong sales efforts and Scripps’ sports strategy.”

“During the quarter, our Local Media division revenue was down 27% due to the absence of political advertising revenue compared to the prior year,” Chief Financial Officer Jason Combs said. “Core advertising revenue was up nearly 2%. We grew national advertising revenue, driven by an increase in our largest category, services. Our sports strategy helped drive that Q3 performance as well. Local Media distribution revenue was flat."

‘We’re Very, Very Optimistic About 2026’
While broadcasters haven’t released detailed guidance for their 2026 revenue expectations, executives offered generally bullish comments for the year ahead in terms of the impact of political advertising and the prospects for deregulation.

“I would say that we’re really optimistic about 2026,” said Gray Media’s LaPlatney. “We have some early Q1 numbers that are encouraging, in fact, very encouraging…As we sit here today, we’re very, very optimistic about 2026.

“We think broadcast is going from strength to strength at this moment,” explained Perry Sook, founder, chairman and CEO of Nexstar. “In the near term, we see a decreasing interest rate environment, the reset of the majority of our distribution contracts at the end of this year, the acquisition of TEGNA and an election year in 2026, all of which we expect to drive shareholder value. Longer term, we expect to accelerate our CW and NewsNation network growth strategies, our deployment of applications for ATSC 3.0 and innovation around how we go to market and the products and services we bring to benefit our viewers and our advertisers.”

As expected, M&A activity was a major topic of discussion.

‘We're Operating in the Wild Wild West’
Sinclair’s Ripley noted that “the broadcast sector is facing secular challenges within linear TV while having a unique opportunity for significant consolidation. We believe the industry is at an inflection point where scale and operational efficiency will increasingly separate high-performing companies from the rest. … Against this backdrop, in mid-August, we launched a strategic review of our broadcast business and an evaluation of a potential separation of ventures to optimize value creation across our portfolio,” that has already led to “several transactions, including partner station acquisitions and select acquisitions and divestitures.”

“One potential path for industry evolution could involve consolidating into two similarly sized scale broadcast groups," Ripley continued. "[C]reating another group comparable in size to the large broadcast combination announced in August [i.e., the proposed Nexstar-Tegna combination], could unlock an estimated $600 million to $900 million in annual synergies through mergers and subsequent portfolio optimizations. This level of consolidation would strengthen the industry's financial footing and position broadcasters as more capable competitors to big media and big tech.

“While we present this as one potential industry scenario rather than a prediction, the fundamental point is clear,” Ripley added. “The regulatory environment now enables transformational consolidation that can benefit Broadcast Group shareholders, creditors, employees and the communities we serve. Sinclair is well-positioned in this environment, and we're actively evaluating how best to participate to maximize value for our stakeholders.”

Scripps’ discussion of M&A opportunities was more modest. “As I've said from the start, we are totally focused on optimizing our portfolio of stations to structurally enhance performance and economic durability in service to our vision to create connection,” Scripps President and CEO Adam Symson sais. “We've already announced a station-swap deal with Gray where we are exchanging two Scripps stations for five Gray stations, a transaction that improves our market positioning and creates immediate efficiency opportunities. We also announced station sales in Fort Myers, Fla., and Indianapolis for cash. The sale prices represent premium multiples for the industry. These are quality stations we agreed to sell only at strong valuations, and the cash we receive will go directly to delevering.”

Deregulation Continues
In the Q3 earnings call, Nexstar’s Sook reiterated his previously expressed belief that the industry should see significant deregulation of broadcast ownership rules.

“The 8th Circuit mandate was issued on Oct. 21,” he said, refrencing the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s rule barring a station group from owning more than one of the top-four stations in audience share in a given market. “That eliminates the top-four ownership rule, that will go into effect as soon as that order is published in the Federal Register and it's effective 30 days later. … And we, again, continue to believe that this administration, the Trump administration and Brendan Carr at the FCC are focused on deregulating business, allowing businesses to breathe, allowing businesses to compete and that we’ve been spending a lot of time in Washington to reinforce at the regulatory agencies and on the hill that we are indeed here to help meet the regulatory moment."

While Gray Media has already announced a number of potential acquisitions and station swaps, including an agreement to acquire stations from Allen Media Group, Howell also expressed a note of caution during the analyst call. Reacting to a report of a possible merger or deal with Sinclair, he said, “there is nothing that we are in deep negotiation with at the moment.”

“We are in a period of time in our industry where things change faster than I have ever, ever seen it,” Howell added. “For the first time in the history of our business, we are really operating in the Wild, Wild West. No one knows what the rules actually are. Anybody that tells you that…they just do not. They cannot.

“I don’t want to…do any deal that would put the basic company in any kind of risk,“ he continued. “Now, there’s a lot of big opportunities to grow. Unlike perhaps some of our competitors, I don’t believe, and my management team unanimously does not believe, that Gray actually has to do anything. I mean, we’re just fine where we are, and we can carry on our previously announced efforts to just reduce our debt and pay it down and then return more to our shareholders.”

Notwithstanding ongoing tariff-related economic uncertainty, tv broadcasters were finding a lot about what was happening at the midway point in 2025 to justify surprisingly optimistic commentary about their near- and long-term prospects.

Of course, with the tariff threat escalating in mid-July, there was no way to count on the first half of the year as an indicator of what’s in store for the larger economy. But at least industry results to date were cause for relief compared to what might have been.

Exceeding Expectations
While TV station and network owners attested to an overall softness in the local ad market stemming from the tariff situation, outlooks for the rest of the year were buoyed by results exceeding expectations, including the fact that year-over-year ad revenue declines were relatively mild in the 5-10+ percent range, which improved on the usual fluctuations following a national election year.

Addressing analysts in May, major TV station groups predicted continuing gains from technology-driven cost efficiencies, expanded local news coverage through digital outlets, the return of many major sports teams to local OTA distribution, and a strong pace in distribution contract renewals. In comments typifying the industry state of mind, E. W. Scripps president and CEO Adam Symson touted an outlook based on Q1 results that “beat expectations across the board due to strength in networks revenue, especially for connected TV, and due to strong expense control across the enterprise.”

On Sinclair’s May Q1 conference call, president and CEO Chris Ripley noted that “Sinclair delivered solid financial results in a challenging environment,” reflected by the fact that “adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high end of our range guidance.” Confirming Ripley’s description of Sinclair’s core advertising trends as “among the best in the industry,” Sinclair executive vice president and CFO Lucy Rutishauser said Q2 would see local ad revenue tracking “lower by approximately 2 percent at the midpoint of our guidance range.”

Projecting the pace beyond Q2 is hard, she added. “We believe the current macroeconomic and tariff-related uncertainty is causing our advertisers in several key categories to have significantly reduced visibility and is therefore driving a wide range of potential outcomes in the second half of the year,” Rutishauser said. “In fact, several of those advertisers have pulled their own financial guidance.”

On the brighter side, she noted, “distribution revenues are expected to be 1% higher year over year as we begin to cycle through some of the larger distribution renewals from a year ago.“

And “sports on broadcast have seen record highs,” added Rob Weisbord, Sinclair chief operating officer and president of Local Media. “So even with the economic times’ uncertainty, what we know for certain is that there is a demand for top-tier sports.”

Looking at the tariff situation, Nexstar Chairman and CEO Perry Sook contends, at least in Nexstar’s case, there’s little cause for concern. As to whether tariffs might result in ad sales “falling off the cliff,” Sook says, “The answer is no.” While uncertainties might be causing some hesitation in ad buys among auto makers and other sellers of goods that could face higher tariffs, “only about 40 percent of our non-political ad revenue is tied to goods-based businesses that could be impacted by tariffs,” he says.

Tegna, in a release describing Q1 performance exceeding expectations, said the results, with just a 5% ad revenue drop from the politically charged 2024 ad pace, showed the company’s “resilience despite facing macroeconomic headwinds.” Amid anticipated ongoing softness in the overall local ad market, the growth rate on the digital side was making a big difference, leaving the company “in a strong position to drive profitable digital growth through 2025 and beyond,” Tegna Chief Financial Officer Julie Heskett says.

Conservative Analysts
How all this plays with investors remains to be seen. But Justin Nielson, principal analyst and head of S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan, suggests a few silver linings in the many clouds overhanging the broadcast TV industry haven’t changed his group’s conservative outlook on the sector’s long-term prospects.

Accounting for election-related ups and downs in ad sales cycles, S&P Kagan projects a 0.5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for TV station ad revenue through 2035, with a 1.3% CAGR for core local spot ads and 2.0% CAGR for streamed video and website ads slightly outweighing a 4.1% decline in the national spot CAGR.

These projections account for the many upsides cited by station group executives, Nielson says, including likely consolidation, strong sports schedules, digital content expansion, NextGen TV, and other factors. But in each case, he says, there are trends that appear to set limits on the potential.

For example, as station groups emphasize the work they’ve done to provide their audiences more local news coverage through digital outlets, Nielson says S&P Kagan has seen “a bit of a plateau in terms of what stations are putting on line.” When it comes to winning viewers who stream content to connected TV sets through station streaming services or participation in FAST channels, stations are up against a “lot of competition,” he adds.

Such hard-nosed reality checks on industry optimism make clear there’s another way to look at things, but, given the volatility intrinsic to every trend line, it’s never been harder to judge where things are going. Beyond TV broadcasters’ take on what’s happening, there’s ample evidence for “the momentum shifting in favor of broadcasters,” as Nexstar President and COO Mike Baird puts it.

One clue in that vein can be found in MoffettNathanson’s newly released Q1 Cord Cutting Monitor, which tracks trends in the pay TV industry with a direct bearing on the broadcast TV segment. Notably, “we’ve now had three consecutive quarters of improvement in the decline rate of traditional Pay TV, co-authors Craig Moffett, Robert Fishman and Michael Nathanson report. “That’s the first time we’ve been able to say that since the decline began.”

At the same time, while virtual MVPDs, including sector leader YouTube TV, Hulu Live TV, Fubo TV, Sling TV and DirecTV Now, are still growing, “collectively they just reported what was by far the worst quarter in the short history of the category,” according to MoffettNathanson. A key but still nascent factor in the trend shifts that could have a growing impact over time is the bundling strategy employed by Charter in the wake of the 2023 agreement with The Walt Disney company, which has made all content from Charter’s programming affiliates available to the MVPD’s subscribers via streaming as well as in linear TV mode.

With Charter set to acquire cable MVPD Cox Communications, the strategy is likely to impact a bigger share of TV viewers, whether or not Comcast and other MVPDs pursue the model, the analysts say. “What all this really points out is the ridiculousness of the current model; some content on linear, some on streaming, with separate subscriptions for both and no way to know in advance which content will be where. It took Charter, a distributor, to save the content providers from themselves,” they add.

One upshot of these new developments is they may invalidate the longstanding assumption that Disney’s decision to make ESPN available as a streaming service “will sound the death knell for linear TV.” Subscribers who want to include ESPN in whatever assembly of streaming services suits their tastes will find it’s “much cheaper to subtribe to a linear package that already includes ESPN. And it will be a whole lot simpler, to boot,” the analysts assert. “A quarter that saw traditionally delivered pay TV —led by Charter—do better, while vMVPD-delivered pay TV did worse, could maybe, just maybe, be the beginning of a trend.”

Regulatory Relief
Near-term considerations aside, the cause repeatedly cited by broadcasters for renewed optimism about the future is their confidence they’ll be getting regulatory relief on ownership caps, ATSC 3.0 spectrum availability and other issues. Nothing looms bigger than expectations the FCC will soon be issuing a new notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on national and local station ownership caps.

“I’d think a NPRM is the most likely way to kick off a revision of rules, local and national, as they relate to ownership,” Perry Sook said during Nexstar’s Q1 call in May. “I’d think that would be one of the first moves chairman [Brendan] Carr would make.”

Optimism about what’s in store in Washington is fueled by the fact that, as noted by Sook—who’s also the current chairman of the NAB’s joint board of directors—“this is the first time in history that the entire board voted unanimously that the national cap elimination and in-market ownership restrictions be eliminated.” It’s certainly “impactful at the regulatory agencies and on Capitol Hill that the industry is speaking in one voice as it relates to this issue.”

Describing what the upsides would be for Gray Media if much-anticipated loosening of station ownership caps are adopted by the FCC, Gray Chairman and CEO Hilton Howell told analysts on the company’s Q1 call, “The consolidation allows us to compete with the really huge tech giants that are actually taking about 80% of the local ad market.” Consolidation, he added, “is an all-in-all positive for the entirety of the broadcast business.”

One of the loudest voices in this choir belongs to Sinclair’s Ripley. “Regulatory optimism remains buoyant with expectations for loosened M&A restrictions and next-gen spectrum relief among other potentially favorable changes that could lead to a strengthening of local journalism,” he says.

Still, beyond the generally upbeat expectations on the ownership front, there are potential flies in the ointment related to FCC responses to NAB-supported station group calls for rules shifting control over retransmission fee negotiations with vMVPDs from broadcast networks to stations—as is the case with how MVPD negotiations are managed. Adding urgency to the matter, the long-running battle between network and station owners on this issue recently entered the Paramount-Skydance merger discussion at the FCC.

As previously reported, CBS station affiliates represented by the CBS Television Network Affiliates Association asked the commission to impose conditions on the merger protecting affiliate interests regarding this and other issues. More broadly in the case of how that merger is weighed by regulators, Paramount’s agreement to a $16 million payment to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over “60 Minutes” handling of the pre-election interview with Vice President Kamala Harris underscored industry sensitivities to the pitfalls of crossing the administration politically.

Of course, any big bottom-line impacts resulting from regulatory changes won’t be felt until new rules go into effect in 2026 and beyond. But, as Tegna CEO Mike Steib notes, there’s a lot about what’s already in play on the efficiency side of improving performance that will move to center stage when the next round of consolidation kicks in.

“A real driver of value in the consolidation opportunity is around local costs,” Steib says. Noting what consolidation would mean in contrast to “three, four, five, six TV stations performing the same tasks in a market,” he adds, “If you look at the potential sort of back office and support takeout costs across markets and across the country, it’s many billions of dollars of potential savings for the ecosystem.”

Tariff Impact
It's clear that broadcasters are putting real money behind these ambitions. Uniformly, suppliers we queried for this article sounded more upbeat than they did at NAB a few months ago when everyone was concerned about how looming tariffs and general economic conditions would affect buying decisions.

So far, they said, tariffs have been a non-issue in their sales performance, though they acknowledged that could change. But with industry investments in operational efficiency, digital development and advanced advertising solutions surging, they said they were confident 2025 will turn out to be a good year.

One bird’s eye view from the cloud perspective on industry transformation comes from Chris Blandy, director of strategic business development for M&E and games and sports at Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is seeing “continued momentum across the media and entertainment industry as companies migrate their existing archives and new workloads to the cloud, while also exploring new generative AI tools to support their productions and create more personalized experiences for audiences,” Blandy says.

For example, broadcasters are faced with a “need to manage petabytes of video content and prepare assets for different downstream distribution channels, which must be organized and tagged with appropriate metadata for cross-platform distribution.” As a result, he adds, “our customers are turning to agentic AI to deploy media operations agents for specific tasks, such as celebrity detection, synopses and quality and compliance control.”

Business for Bitmovin, long a leading beneficiary of the video streaming revolution, continues to surge as ever more service providers look to consolidate and streamline video processing.

“It’s all about efficiency,” Bitmovin Co-founder and CEO Stefan Lederer says. “We’re seeing customers really take a hard look at their technology stacks to unlock cost savings through smarter, more streamlined workflows. That’s true across our entire product portfolio, from better encoding efficiency and CDN savings, to switching to commercial platforms or analytics tools like ours that are built to drive efficiency and results.”

As a result, Lederer says, “we’re on track to double our growth goal for this year. By the end of the first half, we had already achieved the full growth target originally set for 2025.”

The trends are just as impactful for longtime traditional TV providers who have evolved their technologies to fit the new market dynamics. Noting that Appear is building on a 46% revenue increase in 2024, Matthew Williams-Neale, Appear vice president of marketing, echoed the common refrain.

“Broadcasters and media operators remain focused on deploying technologies that boost efficiency, support distributed production, and enhance audience engagement,” Williams-Neale says. “We see this reflected in strong customer interest around hybrid workflows, cloud migration, and open software ecosystems.”

As for the tariff threat, Norway-based Appear “has taken proactive steps to reinforce our supply chain and manufacturing strategy,” he says. “By maintaining a flexible, geographically diverse approach to sourcing and production, we’re able to mitigate regional risks and respond quickly to customer needs.”

Even U.S.-based suppliers with stakes in hardware sales find themselves taking precautions to avoid fallout from tariffs. Austin, Texas-based Media Excel, for example, is “paying close attention to the tariffs,” says CEO Narayanan Rajan, who asserts the outlook for the rest of 2025 is positive for his company, “despite the ongoing pressure on spending across different industry segments.”

As a supplier of encoding appliances as well as software-based encoding and other solutions, Media Excel understands tariffs could “impact the appliance side of our business, as our products are manufactured in South Korea.” Noting “the situation is very dynamic,” Rajan says in the event of outcomes unfavorable to Media Excel’s interests, “we will respond accordingly to ensure that we maintain our long-standing and successful relationships with our client base.”

The Advanced Advertising Push
Demand for advertising solutions that can maximize returns in the digital domain is another big driver behind broadcaster spending. “At the mid-point of 2025, we’re seeing broadcasters double down on the technologies that are driving revenue in OTT, of which dynamic ad insertion with one-to-one addressability is a key component,” says Paul Davies, head of marketing at dynamic ad platform supplier Yospace.

“In under a year,” Davies adds, “we have seen the amount of ads stitched increase substantially, from 6 billion in July 2024—which was a record at the time and was helped by a major sports tournament—to over 8 billion as normal everyday traffic by May 2025. This increase is due to several factors, but mainly that streaming audiences are growing and broadcasters are meeting that demand by investing in dynamic ad insertion across more of their content.”

He cites several advances in industry standards that are improving monetization in the digital realm, including the Common Media Client Data standard (CMCDv2), which will enable IAB-compliant measurement across a greater array of endpoints. “That will add a lot of value for advertisers and hopefully increase their investment in CTV,” he says.

Demand for advanced advertising solutions varies widely across the station owner, broadcast network and larger media company ecosystem based on each company’s unique business models, notes Dave Dembowski, senior vice president of global sales and marketing at Operative, a supplier of ad order and other media management solutions.

“Everyone knows that AI and cloud deliver the efficiency and agility they need, but they are also aware that it will be difficult to rip out legacy tech, so some are making bold moves to start clean while others are taking a more modular approach,” Dembowski says.

But he stresses the case is building for the more aggressive approach. “Media companies that are already ahead on implementing multichannel cloud solutions have the power and control to make really sophisticated decisions about their business because they have the confidence that comes from a unified view,” he says.

Netflix reported generally positive results for first-quarter 2025, with revenue up 13% year-over-year to $10.543 billion and operating income growing by 27% to $3.347 billion. Both were ahead of the streamer’s guidance due to slight upticks in subscriptions and ad revenue and the timing of expenses.

Earnings per share hit $6.61.

The earnings topped Wall Street expectations and investors reacted generally positively to the news, with the stock up 3.03% in after-hours trading as of 7:10 p.m. ET.

This was the first quarter for Netflix’s new policy of not reporting quarterly subscriber counts.

In the U.S. and Canada, growth was slower, with revenue up 9% to $4.617 billion.

The company touted its progress in expanding its ad business, which along with price hikes, has become a key component of its future growth plans, but provided few specifics.

“As we deliver more value to members, we refine our plans and pricing to improve monetization to drive investment in future service improvements,” Netflix said. “Our ads plan allows us to offer lower price points for consumers while creating an additional revenue and profit stream for our business. We continue to make progress building our ads business. We remain on track to reach sufficient scale with our member base in all ads countries in 2025, and we expect to continue to grow our ads membership from this strong base in the future.”

It also touted the reach of its audience, which it pegged at more than 700 million globally.

The company reiterated its guidance for 2025 despite recent economic and stock market turmoil.

“We continue to forecast 2025 revenue of $43.5B-$44.5B, which assumes healthy member growth, higher subscription pricing and a rough doubling of our ad revenue, partially offset by F/X net of hedging,” Netflix said in a letter to shareholders. “We’re still targeting a 29% operating margin for 2025 based on F/X rates as of Jan. 1, 2025. There’s been no material change to our overall business outlook since our last earnings report, although at current F/X rates (with the recent weakness of the U.S. dollar relative to most other currencies), we’re currently tracking above the midpoint of our 2025 revenue guidance range.”

NEW YORK—Paramount Global reported significant third-quarter improvement in its direct-to-consumer business in the third quarter, with Paramount+ adding 3.5 million subscribers to tally 72 million overall.

But the beleaguered media conglomerate’s third-quarter earnings call wasn’t all rosy, as cord-cutting and a difficult ad market hurt its overall financial results. Revenue fell to $6.731 billion for the period, down 6% from $7.133 billion a year earlier, and operating income fell to $337 million, down 46% from $621 million a year ago.

Total direct-to-consumer revenue, including both subscription service Paramount+ and FAST platform Pluto TV, was $1.86 billion, up 10% from $1.69 billion a year earlier as DTC profitability improved significantly year-over-year, the company reported.

DTC subscription revenue grew 7%, driven by year-over-year subscriber growth and pricing increases for Paramount+, while DTC advertising revenue rose 18%, reflecting growth from both Paramount+ and Pluto TV.

Overall, Paramount+ revenue grew 25% and DTC adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) increased $287 million year-over-year to $49 million, reflecting revenue growth and cost efficiencies.

But declines in the pay TV business and a difficult market for linear TV advertising continue to hurt the company’s TV Media division.

TV Media revenue, including Paramount’s pay TV networks and CBS, decreased 6% to $4.3 billion, primarily driven by lower affiliate revenue and fluctuations in licensing fees, while TV Media advertising revenue decreased 2%, the company said.

In addition, TV Media affiliate and subscription revenue decreased 7%, driven by subscriber declines and a 2-percentage-point decrease from the absence of pay-per-view boxing events, partially offset by price increases. TV Media licensing and other revenue decreased 12%, reflecting a lower licensing volume in the secondary market.

As a result, TV Media adjusted OIBDA decreased 19% to $936 million.

Comcast reported healthy third-quarter revenues driven by an increase in ad sales during the Paris Summer Olympics, strong box-office receipts for its films and fewer broadband internet cancellations.

Philadelphia-based Comcast reported overall revenues of $32.07 billion, beating Wall Street’s estimates of $31.66 billion. The Paris Games boosted Comcast’s NBCUniversal media business by $1.9 billion, a record for the Olympics, the company said. Studio revenues increased to $2.83 billion, a 12.3% increase compared to the same quarter a year ago, mostly on the strong performances of summer hits “Despicable Me 4” and “Twisters.”

The revenues from the media and studio divisions helped offset a 5.3% decline in revenues at Comcast’s theme parks. The company hopes that the opening of its new Universal Epic Universe in Florida in the spring of 2025 will help boost its bottom line in that market sector.

Also Read: Comcast Explores Spinoff of Cable Networks

Streaming service Peacock added 3 million new paid subscriptions; the service now counts 36 million subscribers. Peacock revenue increased 82% to $1.5 billion.

Broadband and video subscription declines were not as steep as expected, with Comcast’s cable unit losing 87,000 subscribers during the quarter. That was much lower than the anticipated 143,200 losses forecasted due to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which subsidized internet access for low-income U.S. households. If not for the termination of that program, Comcast said, it would have added 9,000 broadband subscribers in the quarter.

Comcast video subscriptions declined by 365,000, lower than the expected 420,300.

LOS GATOS, Calif.—Netflix reported another generally strong quarter in its Q3 2024 earnings report, adding more than 5 million new subscribers as revenue increased by 15% year-over-year to $9.8 billion. Operating income, operating margins and earnings per share also increased.

Overall, the streaming service’s net income in Q3 was $2.9 billion, up from $1.9 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share hit $5.40, up from $3.73 a year ago.

Netflix reported that its advertising effort was making “good progress” as the company approached the second anniversary of the launch of its ad business.

“Our ads plan allows us to offer a lower price point for consumers, which is proving to be popular: in Q3, it accounted for over 50% of signups in our ads countries and membership on our ads plan grew 35% quarter over quarter,” the company said in its letter to shareholders. “We’re on track to reach what we believe to be critical ad subscriber scale for advertisers in all of our ads countries in 2025, creating a strong base from which we can further increase our ad membership in 2026 and beyond. We’re also pleased with the engagement on our ads plan with view hours per membership similar to engagement on our standard plan in our 12 ads countries.”

Even so, the shareholder letter stressed that it is “still very early for our advertising initiative. As we said last quarter, it takes time to build a new revenue stream and we don’t expect ads to be a primary driver of our revenue growth in 2025.”

Overall, the company is expecting “our total company revenue to grow 15% year over year in 2024. And we’re making progress with ads monetization, as we saw in this year’s U.S. upfront—closing deals with all major holding companies as well as independent agencies, with a 150% plus increase in upfront ad sales commitments over 2023, in line with our expectations.”

LOS GATOS, Calif.—In its Q3 2023 earnings report, Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing helped the streaming giant increase subscribers even in the more mature and highly competitive U.S. and Canadian region where it added 1.75 million subs for a total of 77.32 million subs at the end of Q3 2023, a vast improvement over the 0.1 million subs it added a year earlier in Q3 2022.  

Globally it added 8.76 million subs for a total of 247.15 million at the end of Q3 2023. 

Netflix stock was up in early trading on October 19 as it generally outperformed financial expectations with Q3 2023 revenue hitting $8.5 billion with net income of $1.677 billion, up from 7.9 billion in revenue and 1.398 billion in net income a year earlier. Operating margins rose to about 20%.

In a letter to shareholders, the company noted that it was resuming its price hikes. “Starting today, we’re adjusting prices in the US, UK and France,” the company said. “In the US, our ads ($6.99) and our Standard plans ($15.49) will stay the same, while Basic will now be $11.99 and Premium $22.99.” That represents a $3 price hike for the Premium plan for subs who want to avoid ads and access 4K content. 

The company also reported progress in its plans to make advertising a more important part of the business. “ In Q3 ’23, our ads membership increased nearly 70% quarter-over-quarter and now accounts for ~30% of all new sign-ups in our 12 ads countries.” the shareholder letter noted. 

The company also noted that it was expecting to spend about $13 billion on content in 2023, a figure that had been reduced by ongoing strikes, and planned to spend around $17 billion in 2024.  

Roku’s Q2 2023 earnings report beat analyst estimates for earnings and users, pushing up the stock in afterhours trading, despite what the company called a “muted” TV advertising climate.

In afterhours trading the stock was up from its close of $68.19 to 74.40 at 5.53 p.m. ET, on July 27.

Roku reported that active accounts on its streaming platforms increased by 16% YoY to 73.5 million and by 1.9 million in Q2 alone.

Meanwhile, total streaming hours were up 21% YoY in Q2 2023 to 25.1 billion hours even though streaming hours did not increase during Q2. The total streaming hours translates into about 3.8 hours per day in active accounts, Roku reported.

Total net revenue was $847 million, up 11% year over year (YoY), while platform revenue was $744 million, up 11% YoY and gross profit was $378 million, up 7% YoY.

“We have begun to see some ad verticals improve, which resulted in modest YoY Platform revenue growth in Q2, and we are well positioned to re-accelerate growth as the ad market recovers. We continue to moderate the YoY growth rate of operating expenses and remain committed to our plan to deliver positive Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2024,” the company said in a letter to shareholders.

Even so, the company remained cautious on the overall ad market.

The shareholder letter noted that: “While Q2 Platform revenue exceeded our expectations, the macro environment continued to create uncertainty with the total U.S. advertising market flat YoY in Q2. ad spend on traditional TV declined 9.4% YoY, and traditional TV ad scatter was down 17.2% YoY (according to SMI). Consistent with Q2 industry trends, brand advertising on the Roku platform remained pressured YoY in verticals like technology and M&E (media and entertainment), which was offset by increasing spend from important categories like CPG (consumer packaged goods) and health and wellness. Also, the macro uncertainty has impacted the timing of Upfront negotiations, with commitments proceeding at a slower pace across the industry.” 

LOS GATOS, Calif.—Netflix's password sharing crackdown helped the company report generally healthy subscriber growth for Q2, 2023 as global subs grew by 5.89 million to 238.39 million and subs in the U.S. and Canadian market increased by 1,173,000 subs to 75,571,000. 

Netflix also said the subscribers for its ad-supported plan nearly doubled from a "small membership base" since Q1 but provided no specific numbers. 

“Q2‘23 revenue of $8.2B and operating profit of $1.8B were generally in-line with our forecast—and we expect revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of ‘23 as we start to see the full benefits of paid sharing plus continued steady growth in our ad-supported plan,” the company said in a letter to shareholders. “We’re still targeting a full year 2023 operating margin of 18% to 20%. We’re a leader in terms of streaming engagement and, per Nielsen, we had the top original streaming series in the US for 24 of the first 25 weeks of 2023, and the top movie for 21 weeks.”

But Netflix shares declined in after hours trading with slower than expected revenue growth even though the company beat subscriber and earnings per share forecasts.

The company did not release numbers for subscribers to its ad-supported tier. “While we continue to grow our reach—ads plan membership has nearly doubled since Q1— it’s still off a small membership base, so current ad revenue isn’t material for Netflix,” the letter to shareholders said. “Building an ads business from scratch isn’t easy and we have lots of hard work ahead, but we’re confident that over time we can develop advertising into a multi-billion dollar incremental revenue stream.

Management also remarked on its push to attract subscribers to the ad-supported offering, noting that the ad supported tier now had about 95% of the content available in the ad free offerings.

“Increased sophistication on pricing and plans strategy is important to improved monetization,” the letter said. “In Q1, we lowered prices in a number of less penetrated markets, and in Q2, we phased out our Basic ads-free plan for new and rejoining members in Canada (existing members on the Basic ads-free plan are unaffected). We’re now doing the same in the US and the UK. We believe our entry prices in these countries – $6.99 in the US, £4.99 in the UK and $5.99 in Canada – provide great value to consumers given the breadth and quality of our catalog.

It also said that its crackdown on password sharing was helping its bottom line. “Now that we’ve launched paid sharing broadly, we have increased confidence in our financial outlook,” the company told shareholders. “We expect revenue growth will accelerate in the second half of 2023 as monetization grows from our most recent paid sharing launch and we expand our initiative across nearly all remaining countries plus the continued steady growth in our ad-supported plan (more details in the Monetization and Revenue section)."

Reduced spending on programming and other cost cutting measures also prompted the company to raise its profit margin forecasts.  

SAN JOSE, Calif.—In its Q4, 2022 earnings report, Roku reported increased usage by consumers, adding nearly 10 million net new active accounts to end 2022 with about 70 million active accounts. 

Roku also reported that total global streaming hours on its platform grew by 14.3 billion hours or about 23% to 87.4 billion in 2022. In the U.S., where Roku is the most popular streaming platform, its free streaming service, The Roku Channel reached households with about 100 million people. 

Total net revenue grew 13% year over year (YoY) to $3.1 billion while platform revenue increased 20% YoY to $2.7 billion. 

Based on the results, the stock surged by about 10% in after hours trading to $70 a share at 4:23 ET.

Operating losses in an increasingly difficult ad market spiked however to $249.9 million, up from $147.0 million in Q3, 2022 and a positive operating income of $21.4 million in Q4 2021. 

“We plan to continue to improve our operating expense profile to better manage through the challenging macro environment, while building on our platform’s monetization and engagement tools and partnerships,” the company said in a letter to shareholders. “Through a combination of operating expense control and revenue growth, we are committed to a path that delivers positive adjusted EBITDA for full year 2024.” 

Overall the company had 4.6 million net adds in active accounts in Q4 2022 and 9.9 million for the full year. 

“The shift to TV streaming continues with cord cutting accelerating in the U.S. in 2022,” the letter to shareholders said. “Four of the five biggest U.S. pay TV operators reported 2022 subscriber losses that were 60% higher than 2021. In a recent survey, Cord Cutter News found that more than 70% of U.S. cord-cutters use a Roku device and stated, `Roku is the clear leader in the world of cord cutting and is almost twice as popular as its next competitor.’”

The company also reported gains in the usage of its operating system for smart TVs. “In Q4, Roku TV gained share, and we extended our leadership in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico,” the letter said. “According to NPD, the Roku operating system (OS) was the No. 1 selling smart TV OS in the U.S., and our 38% share of units sold in Q4 was more than the next two largest TV operating systems combined. The Roku OS was also the No. 1 selling smart TV OS in Canada and No. 1 in Mexico, where we grew to 30% of units sold.”

To build on that, Roku recently announced it would be building its own TVs, which will launch in the sprint of 2023. 

BURLINGTON, MASS. – Avid’s second quarter financial results fell short of expectations for the provider of film and television production technology.

The company’s net loss for the second quarter came to a total of $4.08 million, bringing Avid’s total net loss for 2015 to $4.25 million. During the first quarter of 2014, Avid generated more than $5.55 million in revenue.

Avid’s total net revenue for Q2 came in at $109.76 million, down nearly $10 million from Q1, with total costs reaching $43.47 million, resulting in a gross profit of $66.29 million. Those numbers are down $5.79 million from Q1 and $7.92 million from Q2 2014. The gross profit for 2015 to date is $138.39 million, down more than $20 million from the first six months of 2014.

Operating expenses increased from Q1 to Q2, coming in at $74.49 million for the second quarter, and totaling $145.47 million for 2015. Combined with Avid’s gross profit, operating costs brought a loss of $8.19 million in Q2 and $7.08 million in 2015.

Failing to meet expectations for the second straight quarter, Avid CEO Louis Hernandez said in a conference call on Aug. 10 that industry trends, including elongated sales cycles for Tier One accounts and the transition of the industry, were contributing factors to the company’s 2015 earnings.

“We could certainly be impacted by an industrywide pause in traditional broadcast technology investment as enterprises evaluate how to deploy their capital,” Hernandez said.

However, Avid remains positive that recent activity will cause a boost in the second half of 2015. Avid reached a milestone with 10,000 paid subscribers at the end of Q2; currently, the total number of paid subscribers has exceeded 12,000. The company also completed its acquisition of Orad back in June. In addition, new products that were announced are expected to bring back revenue; Avid predicts 17 million new product sales in the second half. This increased visibility has led Avid to raise its estimated net income from $72 million$78 million to $74 million-$80 million.

“We believe the growth in revenue backlog, improving gross margins as a percent of revenue, the growth opportunity presented with the addition of Orad and the ability to accelerate our cost savings positions the company well for a strong second half of 2015,” said John Frederick, Avid’s chief financial and administrative officer.

To see the full Avid report, click here.